


The Sun Came Crashing In

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Golf, F/F, Golf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1881891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye has been working at Shield Pines' golf course (a part time tourist attraction, part time rundown golf course) for as long as she's been able to, but things have never been too exciting until one day the "twins" show up at the course and suddenly everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Week 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the fact that I have spent way too much of this summer at various golf courses. I ended up posting a bunch of hc's on tumblr and then it spanned out into this, enjoy my very much self-indulgent golf au

They arrive without warning, without explanation.

One moment she’s in the middle of telling kids to get off of the carts, and the next she happens to look up at notice them.

The two figures are standing on the putting green arguing over something that she cannot possibly make out.

They look completely out of place on the normally depressed golf course, dressed like they’re at a PGA tournament matching outfits made of blue plaid. Their posture and movements mirror each other, perfectly in sync in a way which should probably have freaked her out a lot more than it did.

It takes two minutes of watching them before she mentally labels them as the Lannister twins and goes back to her work day like nothing had occurred at all.

When she points them out later to a coworker and explains her mocking nickname, she barely even hears him when he tries to correct her and insist that they’re neither twins nor blonde, she’s too fixated on the way they move across the green each step a mirror of the others.

\---

The second day they return and Skye quickly determines that it’s not a fluke; that they are generally showing up at the golf course, with every intention to practice there.

For some reason it bothers her.

She tries to pretend she doesn’t know the reason that is as she keeps a careful eye on the duo.

\---

They’re all anybody can seem to talk about.

This wouldn’t be that annoying except they’re in the break room watching Titanic of all things. And for once Skye would rather listen to Ward talk about how certain actors deserve Oscars, because at least then she wouldn’t have to listen to Trip excitedly explain how he had ‘accident’ bumped into the girl that Skye had labeled _Cersei_ out on the driving range, and that she had the cutest British accent and flush while she apologized.

“So she’s posh and foreign,” Skye grumbles, “big deal.”

“Really Skye, they’re legends at the sport,” Trip insists, and he’s fangirling, or fanboy-ing, whatever the proper term is for a grown man acting like a teenage girl at a One Direction concert, “they went pro when they were _thirteen_. What were you doing when you were thirteen?”

She was sitting in the backseat of her social worker’s car being driven to yet another foster family that didn’t want her, but she doesn’t tell him that, she just makes a vague sort of humming noise and tries to pretend that she is as interested in watching Titanic as Ward is.

She’s not.

But at least it gets Trip to shut up about them.

\---

When she was younger she used to watch their matches on the tv, not that she will willingly admit that to anybody, but the point still stood.

She used to idolize them, the ease at which they played the sport.

A sport that Skye could never quite seem to master no matter how hard she tried.

Not that she had ever tried particularly hard, but that wasn’t the point.

Comparing herself from a young age to the Fitzsimmons twins wasn’t even fair, it didn’t help that her adoptive father had always been talking about them, golf prodigies, insisting that if Skye just went out there on the green and listened to her coaches that she could be just as good as them if not better.

That had worked as a motivational tool for all of four weeks.

Then _Cersei_ won the US open at fifteen and Skye gave up any hope of being the sort of golfer that her adoptive father insisted she had the potential to be.

\---

It’s not like she has any proper reason to dislike them when she really thinks about it.

They’ve been there a total of four days and Skye has maybe exchanged a total of seven words with them, those being, “the vending machine is out of order.”

She considered that a great accomplishment.

Especially when she didn’t snap back as _Jaime_ curled his lip and said, “you should call somebody about that.”

\---

“And then he just sneers at me and says,” she assumes the most mocking attempt at his accent that she can manage, and parrots, “you should call somebody about that.”

Her adoptive father gives her a slightly weathered look, as if he hardly believes what she is telling him and says, “I have been meaning to call someone to fix the machine.”

She wants to tell him that that’s not the point, but she just let’s out the smallest annoyed sigh and throws her hands up in defeat.

\---

Back when she was years younger Skye had thought being adopted by somebody hat owned a golf course would have been the coolest thing in the world.

Of course, that had been back when her idea of golf had been one of those cheesy put-put things not eighteen holes of doom.

However, eighteen holes of doom was exactly what she ended up with.

See the thing was normal people didn't live at golf courses.

They lived in proper houses, in cities or subdivisions or anywhere other than the apartment over Shield Pines' Pro Shop.

However, when she had insisted upon moving out after turning eighteen and her adoptive-father had suggested that she could clean up the old apartment and live there rent free as long as she helped out at the course, Skye had been quick to jump on the opportunity.

She had always planned in a few years to move out of there, that soon she'd have a place of her own as far away from this endless expanse of AstroTurf and sand traps.

Somehow that had yet to actually happen.

\---

Skye was verging on twenty-two and had come to the clear realization that her moving out and away from the course was an unobtainable reality.  

She tried not to feel too disappointed with the realization as she tugged on her work polo and the matching neon green argyle skirt, if nothing else she would at least be cutely dressed for the rest of her life.

The one thing golfers had right was the fashion sense.

Which is why she was always more than content to let Phil buy her the cutesy little golf outfits in hopes that it would inspire her to actually pick up the sport, because at least she looked cute, and if he was able to get a small bit of hope out if it than surely this could be considered a win-win for everyone.

\---

It wasn’t that Skye owned nothing other than polo shirts and golf skirts, except she sort of didn’t.

She was pretty sure there was a pair of jeans and a flannel she had stolen from either Ward or Trip shoved under her bed, but Skye wasn’t even certain that they would fit.

Not that she ever wore much else, since her life seemed to only expand as far as limits of their course.

\---

“The twins are back,” Skye remarks from her position shotgun in one of the golf carts labeled _staff_ , she leans over Trip to point them out. He’s far to fixated on staring at _Cersei_ to even register the fact that Skye is practically on his lap at this point and slowly moving to take charge of the cart.

“I don’t think they’re actually related,” Ward mentions, but as per usual, nobody is paying him any mind, especially seeing as he’s sitting on the back of the golf cart.

“They’re matching again,” she remarks, and of course they are, the blue plaid must be their signature color scheme or something.  “It’s sort of cute,” she adds, not that she likes them or anything, but she always wanted a sibling to be able to match with, “I would play golf if I had a twin to match with.”

“They’re not twins,” Ward repeats, only to once again be ignored, “they have completely different accents. How am I the only one that notices these things?”

Trip just laughs at her, “you wouldn’t play even if somebody paid you a million dollars, having a twin wouldn’t change that.”

“I might,” she insists stubbornly, “for a million dollars _and_ a twin.”

\---

Her only two friends in the world were employees at Shield Pines, perhaps a sign that Skye really ought to get out more.

Then again, the last time she had tried to befriend someone out of the _wonderful world of golf_ had ended up with her brokenhearted at seventeen, crying in an Arby’s parking lot while Ward decked the guy that had the nerve to take advantage of her.

Maybe it was better that her only friends were Trip and Ward.

She had met Ward first, back when he was wearing a plastic nametag that labeled him as _Grant_ , and there was a weird sort of eagerness in his eyes. She had been fourteen, at her latest foster home expecting to be sent on her way at any moment, and he had been the poor college student working part-time for her current foster-parent.

Skye had been all about mastering Shield Pine’s put-put course at the time and Ward had been the poor guy that was stuck handing out the colorful balls and shitty putters to the kids that wanted to try the thing out.

He had taught her the secrets to master the thing, how you had to hit the ball off the brick by the broken clowns head in order to make a hole in one on the third one, or that the little drawbridge on Hole Six had a window of exactly five seconds in which a perfect shot could be made.

He had since moved on to teaching golf classes to little kids and tagging along with her on various errands around the course and somehow they had become friends along the way.

Trip came next, after Skye could have legally been considered Skye Coulson, had she been inclined to change her name. He had responded to a want add that Phil had put out looking for somebody else to help with the children’s classes, since while Ward was technically brilliant at golf, he lacked the social skills necessary to talk to children without making them want to cry.

That was where Trip came in, exceedingly charismatic with a face that could make babies sing and old women’s hearts met, he fit it perfectly at Shield Pine’s. It didn’t help that his grandfather had apparently been some sort of golf legend in the early forties, which had Phil smitten with him during their first conversation.

He used to make jokes that if Skye was going to settle down with anybody that Trip might be the perfect man for her, and that he would love to have him as a son in law.

She got drunk enough once to kiss Trip, part of her doing in it hopes that she could make her adopted father happy while another half of her was focused on the fact that Trip was really fucking pretty and it wasn’t even fair. They had both pulled back the second afterwards with mirror looks of confusion on their faces, then Skye had thrown up because apparently mixing her liquors really was a bad idea. 

“I think you might have turned me gay,” Skye had informed him many times since that particular incident, but Trip always grinned back at her with a look weirdly like pride whenever she told him as much.

She had weird friends.

\---

“Is that who I think it is?”

It’s a rhetorical question, at least she thinks it.

Her Slurpee is half melted and she doesn’t particularly feel like looking up at Trip’s exclamation, not when she’s certain the second she looks away what’s left of her cherry flavored heaven with turn into melted disappointment.

That is until she hears Ward’s exclamation of, “holy shit,” and realizes that something cool might actually be happening.

Her first sight upon following where the guys are looking is once again the twins standing on the driving range in those matching outfits, not anything particularly noteworthy.

It isn’t until she looks to see whose standing with them that she realizes why the guys are freaking out, there’s a woman seated just behind the twins correcting _Jaime_ on his form, who looks freakishly familiar.

There’s a small moment before Skye makes a little, “oh,” noise and says, “you mean May?”

\---

They’re watching The Departed, which really was a terrible movie and a sign that somebody should stop letting Ward pick out the movie to play in the break room.

Except while normally the guy would be staring at the screen, quite possibly quoting every line, he’s the one talking this time, far too excited and the smile on his face would beings to boarder on creepy with how rarely Skye had actually seem him smile.

“Melinda May is their coach,” Ward repeats for the hundredth time, because apparently having a semi-washed up old golf star as their coach was all that was needed to make the twins the most important feature in Grant Ward’s life, even more important than Leonardo DiCaprio’s terrible acting, “the Melinda May.”

“Rumor has it that she came out of retirement to coach them,” Trip says, “not that they need the coaching.”

“I heard that that’s why they’re here, that she would only coach them at this course,” Ward adds.

Skye quickly realizes that it’s not worth the effort to point out two the guys that May and Phil were apparently old college buddies or something and that Skye had actually met the other woman a great number of times and once she was certain she had accidently walked into what moments later would have been a rather awkward position to see the former golf star and her adopted father in.

Instead she just groans at the two of them and says, “I’m trying to watch the movie over here.”

\---

It takes a week before she finally gives up and realizes that they’re not about to leave.

That this is apparently a thing that’s happening and she best get used to it.

She drinks an entire bottle of wine Sunday night in tribute of this realization.


	2. Week 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still can't believe so many people read the first chapter, this fic is so self-indulgent, I am so sorry. 
> 
> Also for reference, this story is going to take place over a time span of eight weeks, each chapter being a 'week'. Do not try to reason why time of year this story is happening in, just imagine they're somewhere warm like California or Florida so the timeline makes sense fitting in the gaps between the professional seasons of the sport.

Chapter two – week two

“Your vending machine is broken,” happens to be the first thing words out of her mouth.

Skye wonders if it’s part of their weird twin telekinesis that makes it so her first conversation with either of them revolves around that damned vending machine.

She silently vows to test it out later and says, “we called somebody to fix it but they never showed up.”

This is admittedly only half-true.

Technically Phil had called somebody about fixing it, but they had given him half-assed excuses and not actually said anything about swinging by the course to fix it.

Skye hadn’t bothered to follow up and scare them into actually doing anything about it.

“Oh,” the other woman says, and Skye mentally braces herself for the same little sneer that her brother had given her, but the woman just looks a bit put out, before she finally says, “I’m sorry,” as if the machine being broken is somehow her fault.

There’s something about her that just strikes Skye as odd.

Suddenly she wonders if maybe comparing her to Cersei mentally was completely unfair, this girl is like the exact opposite of that. She’s more like a kitten wrapped in a polo shirt and plaid skirt.

Her brain might be short-circuiting, but she honestly can’t think of a Game of Thrones metaphor to describe this girl, not when she looks so sweet and sad all at once.

“If it ate your money or something I can reimburse you,” Skye says, after a moment of tense silence between them, figuring if nothing else this could help ease some of the pain that the vending machine ordeal is clearly causing her.

“Oh no, it’s fine, I can afford it,” she insists, shaking her head, the straight lines of her hair breaking up over her shoulders in a way that could almost be described as poetic, “I just wanted to let you know.”

“I’ll go put up a sign,” Skye offers, “that way nobody else makes that mistake.”

“That would probably be for the best,” she agrees, “though if you’re terribly busy, I could make one for you. I wouldn’t want to take you away from your work with such a trivial concern.”

Skye steals one glance around the nearly completely empty Pro Shop and shrugs her shoulders a bit, “I’m chill.”

Skye’s not entirely certain, but she almost thinks that the other woman looks upset before she gives Skye a small smile and leaves the shop as suddenly as she had entered it.

\---

She tapes the sign over the vending machine with strange vindication, the white piece of paper reads _don’t fucking use this_ , written in Skye’s messy handwriting with a purple pen.

Phil makes her take it down after lunch and put up a proper ‘work appropriate’ sign.

She calls him a spoilsport behind her back to Ward, but Ward just frowns at her in his weird way, ever cryptic as usual.

\---

“I’m not sure what you wanted to drink,” Skye says, holding the water bottle out in her hand, “but I figured water was a safe bet.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you,” she says, accepting the drink from Skye, their fingers brushing for the slightly moment.

As long as Skye focuses on her she feels fine, the feeling fades when she looks over her shoulder to see a glare being shot her way.

\---

“Were you flirting with Jemma,” he asks, cornering her the next morning while she’s trying to get some little kid’s ball out of the little pond in the put-put course.

He looks freakishly out of place standing on the AstroTurf in what she could only guess were thousand dollar golf shoes and an equally expensive getup.

Her first thought is to tell him as much, but she holds that in.

Her second thought is to ask, “Who?”

\---

It takes nearly a full day before Skye gets an answer for why he had stormed off dramatically the second she had dared to ask her question. 

The explanation comes in the form of a young woman, standing in front of the Pro Shop’s checkout line with an incredibly worried and sweet expression on her face.

“I’m so sorry about Leopold, he doesn’t always think before he speaks,” she explains. “I told him you were just being friendly and doing your job, but he gets these weird ideas in his head that he has to protect my virtue or something, which is completely absurd mind you-“

“Jemma,” she says, the sudden realization hitting her all at once.

“That would be my name,” she replies, confusion clear on her face, brows furrowing delicately.

“Ahh, that makes a lot more sense.”

She laughs at that, a small pearl of nervous laughter, which she tries to cover up by putting her hands over her face. It’s completely adorable. Skye may not have been flirting with her before, but now the thought most certainly passes through her mind.

Skye’s not smitten, but she’s pretty damn close.

“I never realized that I hadn’t introduced myself, I’m so used to people knowing who I am,” Jemma admits, “which now that I think of it is completely stuck up and narcissistic, oh god, I’m actually awful.”

“I do the same thing,” Skye flashes a grin, “of course, that’s because I’m usually wearing a nametag.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she grins, her eyes falling down to read the name off of the tag, before she adds, “Skye.”

\---

“How did I not know his name was Leopold,” she asks during break, “I mean – that is _literally_ the worst name ever. I thought Mary Sue was bad.”

“Mary Sue is bad,” Trip informs her without delay.

“Calling him Jaime Lannister was actually doing him a favor, because holy shit who the fuck is even named Leopold?”

“Fun fact-“

“That was a rhetorically question,” she cuts him off before he can even begin.

“Can you two be quiet,” Ward jumps in this time, “I’m trying to watch the movie.”

Skye huffs at that, she’s long since stopped caring about the movie, especially seeing as she has not only seen it a billion times, but hated the play with a fiery passion. “Spoiler alert, she fakes her death, then he kills himself, only for her to wake up and kill herself to be with him.”

She can’t see his eye roll, but she’s certain that it’s there.

“I’m just saying shouldn’t you care more about this,” Skye says, poking her toes under Ward’s legs in an attempt to get his attention, but it just gets her swatted at for her troubles, “You do have a thing for Leos after all!”

Trip ends up laughing so hard that they actually have to stop the movie. 

\---

They finish their movie the next day, even though Wednesdays are supposed to be their extended break days.

Skye figures that it won’t be a problem – the course is practically dead anyways, the only people out there are two old couples and the twins.

Plus it’s not like she could get fired, the worst she’ll get is Phil giving her his attempt at a stern look, which to be clear is pathetic and no very stern at all.

Trip’s practically a legacy around this place so his job is pretty much locked in place.

The only person that could have gotten in any sort of trouble was Ward, but at this point, he’s pretty much become a permanent affixture at the course and removing him would probably be considered blasphemy.

Anyways, she was certain if she did explain why they had to move their movie break day to Thursday everyone would start laughing as hard as Trip had the day before that nobody could consider scolding them.

\---

He’s sitting with his back against the door to the Pro Shop where a sign Skye had cleverly written up shines out of the glass, _watching the worst movie on earth brb_.

She was still shocked that she hadn’t received a text telling her to put a proper ‘be back later’ sign up, but that wasn’t the point, the point was the guy staring up at her with what was quite possible the most pathetic glare that she had ever seen.

“Morning, Leopold,” she says with a smirk, watching as the guy tensed from his position on the ground.

“Don’t call me that,” he says sharply, before pushing himself off the ground, taking extreme care to dust off his shorts. “And it’s not morning, it’s well past four in the afternoon, not that anybody around here seems to notice that.”

“Ohh burn,” she mockingly replies.

The eye roll she receives in return is the type of thing that people write bitter songs about. She can’t help herself from wondering if he practices it in front of the mirror.

Skye fumbles her key ring out of her pocket in order unlock the shop’s door, “you know, your sister’s the one who told me your name, so if you want to throw a fuss over it you can go complain to her. It’s better than what I was calling you before that so-“

“What?”

She turns to look at him at that, takes slight pleasure in seeing how the usual smug look on his face is replaced with a more confused one.

“Huh?”

He doesn’t seem too pleased with her response and with a slightly pained look asks, “what were you calling me before,” all in a sort of rush.

“The Lannister twins,” Skye replies without any shame, “you know from Game of Thrones? They’re like weirdly matching,” _and kind of incest-y,_ “while being totally stuck up.”

His expression is still blank, and really she’s almost starting to feel bad about the joke, but what sort of person hasn’t watched Game of Thrones?

Clearly her negative vibe about this kid had been right.

She searched her brain for some other comparison that might make more sense, a pop culture reference that was universally understood. 

“They’re kind of like the medieval version of Ryan and Sharpay from High School Musical,” she offers, not sure if that will be much of any help either.

At this point he at least seems to register something, because his face goes from being confused back to that usual almost disgruntled look.

“Okay I don’t even want to list all the reasons you’re wrong but I feel as if it is my civic duty, because Jemma and I are the furthest thing from Ryan and Sharpay.”

“You guys do match a lot,” Skye points out when she finally gets the door open.

“That’s because only one of us, me,” he clarifies, “has any sort of fashion sense, and honestly if I let Jemma pick out her own sponsors and outfits she’d probably be in Puma orange, which would not be a good color for her complexion!”

“And you were saying that you weren’t the gay twin from High School Musical,” she says with a smirk and a playfully raised eyebrow.

“Yes, because, well for starts – it’s established in the second movie’s canon that neither of the twins can golf, it was the vague plotline in which Ryan felt insecure which led to a baseball dance number and Sharpay was all over Troy which led to his and Gabriella’s inevitable only plotline Disney has split,” he starts with way too much confidence, “obviously Jemma and I as professionals in the sport, can clearly golf.”

She tunes him out shortly after that, not listening to the other ten reasons why he and Jemma were the furthest thing from their Disney Channel counterparts. Including but not limited to: Jemma’s complete lack of singing ability, the fact that he would never in his life be a school mascot, and an allergy to dogs that they both shared.

 “Look I was just- you’ve got some weird twin thing going on that’s all-“

“You do know Jemma and I aren’t actually related right?”

“Wait, what?”

“We’re not-“

“Oh god, you’re married aren’t you?”

“What? No!”

\---

She ambushes Ward and Trip the morning, nearly causing them both to spill their coffee with the urgency in which she requests their presence. 

Without waiting for any sort of greeting she launches into, “did you know the twins weren’t actually twins?”

“No, what holy shit,” Trip says, in the exact manner in which she had been hoping for.

She’s so consumed with having somebody else who she can freak out over this realization too that she complete misses Ward’s exasperated sigh, “I already told you two that,” nobody ever listens to him anyways.

\---

“Yeah, it turns out that their parents met at some golf tournament they were both in as kids,” Skye explains the information exactly as she had heard it the night before from a very exasperated golfer who never ended up buying what he came into the Pro Shop to get, “his mom and her dad like hit it off and got married when they were kids so they’re actually step-siblings.”

“I still can’t get over this,” Trip says; he’s on his fifth cup of coffee by now, somebody really ought to cut him off.

“Me neither,” she insists.

“They have completely different accents,” Ward once again mentions, not that either of them are paying him any mind.

“I just – holy shit, my Lannister comparison makes a lot more sense now, because while clearly it’s not incest, there’s definitely a thing going on with them,” which makes sense that Leopold would have got all up in arms when he thought she was flirting with Jemma – but also is really disappointing because Skye had sort of thought she was kind of cute, and there had always been a small part of her that wanted to hook up with a professional golfer.

Then again, he had been pretty quick to say no when Skye had asked if they were married.

“Anyways, it’s either that or he’s totally gay,” Skye announces.

“Well, that’d be great for Ward then, eh,” Trip says with another laugh, “with your love of _Leos.”_

Ward just shoots them both his usual annoyed look before pretending that his coffee is the most interesting thing in the world.

\---

She’s on her way up to her apartment when she passes a new sign that has been taped up onto the broken vending machine that says in messy, clearly male, handwriting _fix the damn machine_.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out who wrote it up there and Skye can’t help herself from laughing, before she turns the sign over and takes a sharpie to the back of it writing, _shut up leopold nobody asked you._

\---

When she comes back downstairs, she finds that the sign has been replaced once more.

This time it reads: _skye is very immature and can’t be bothered to fix her vending machine._

If he wants war, then he’s going to get it.

\---

She gets a stern text message just as the day is ending, at least she thinks it’s supposed to be stern, with Phil it’s hard to tell.

Her final sign change in their war ends up being: _phil coulson is a party pooper and says no more sign wars._

She somehow misses it Leopold slipping in to change it to _I WIN_.

Though she does get an apology from Jemma when Skye goes to take the sign down and put up a proper out of order sign, and getting to talk to her for a brief moment makes the little sign war they had so much more worth it.

\---

They don’t show up to the course on Sunday.

She keeps expecting them too, and yet, the only people the end up showing up are little kids to terrorize the ducks in the put-put course’s pond and old people trying to pass their Sunday best off as golf course appropriate.

Skye tries not to act too disappointed as she sits in the break room watching Catch Me If You Can with Trip and Ward.

Though she silently makes a vow to figure out why they weren’t there.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was going back to try and make some sort of proper notes on the last chapter it hit me that like while I know a lot about golf and don't feel the need to explain much, other people might not know much at all. So uh, like, what does the average reader (aka you) know about golf/need me to add to the end note section for reference?


	3. Week 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't been replying to comments, I'm on mobile most the time and its hard ):

Skye had just successfully stolen Ward’s coffee from his cart and was on her way back to the shop and to do her job, when she notices the two of them sitting on one of the picnic tables, chatting about something Skye can’t hear.

She doesn’t plan on interrupting them, just plans on going back to the shop to do or job or whatever, but she stands there too long and in a second both of them have snapped their heads up weirdly in unison to stare at her in confusion.

She doesn’t want to admit that she had been worried they wouldn’t come back, because that seems silly and yet at the same time, Skye feels like she should say something about it.

Instead she just sort of awkwardly waves her hand at them and says, “morning,” in a voice that is completely unlike her and far too chipper for this early in the morning.

Though it’s worth it when Jemma lights up and replies, “morning,” like it’s a Friday instead of a Monday.

\---

Shield Pines’ is an old course, _old as balls_ as she had once proudly called it, the sort of place which had seen its glory days many many years before.

Now it mostly served as a place that the elderly visited in order to relive their youths, a course that locals came to visit because there was not much else to do in town, or a borderline tourist trap.

That was why the put-put course was really there, a replication of the old one that had ran there back in the forties.

The only other thing that still had signs of the glory days of Shield Pines’ was a display room that was set up like a museum.  There was a collection of memorabilia from old golfers, signed photographs and trading cards, though the main piece of the collection was a golf club that had previously belong to the world famous Steve Rogers.

It was Phil’s project and the whole reason he had bought the course in the first place, he was a huge fanboy of those classic golfers.

Skye often joked about asking him if he was old enough to remember their games, she never got much more than an eye roll for her troubles.

The thing was, other than Phil nobody cared for the little museum, during the week the place was empty and as such had become one of Skye’s many places to escape to when she was completely done with her coworkers or simply needed some time to think.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one who had thought of the place as such.

\---

Jemma looks just as shocked as Skye is to see her, both women staring awkwardly at each other.

It’s Jemma though that breaks the silence, apologizing once again before, “are you about to close up? I could leave or-“

“No, you’re good,” Skye reassures her, “it’s open to the public.”

“Yes, but you were-“

“I’m fine,” she insists, waving her hand dismissively, “I was actually coming in to hide out here because Ward’s being a dick and nobody ever thinks to check back here, which was why I kind of startled when I saw you in here.”

She’s not sure why she admits it, she could have easily come up with some sort of excuse, and yet the thought of lying to her had felt so weird and wrong that Skye just couldn’t do it.

It seems to work though because in a second Jemma visibly relaxes and admits, “Leopold was being awful and I might have told him that without me he wouldn’t have gotten any sponsors then stormed off.”

“You _might_ have,” Skye teases.

“I’m awful aren’t I,” Jemma asks, flushing prettily.

“A little bit,” she agrees playfully, “but I’ve got a thing for bad girls, so you’re all clear with me.”

Skye tries not to focus on the way the blush grows across Jemma’s face at her words, and instead busies herself with sitting on one of the chair set up around the room for viewing purposes. A second later Jemma mirrors her action, settling into the chair across from her.

“So,” Jemma starts, “uh do come here often?”

Skye snickers at that and tries her most sultry voice as she replies, “oh you know, when I have a reason to.”

They manage to keep themselves together for less than a minute before their both laughing and Skye feels better than she’s felt all day, sitting in the little museum laughing with Jemma.

\---

“I guess part of why I came down here, is that really like the old glitz and glam style,” Jemma confesses, “it makes you almost feel like you’re living a different life. It’s relaxing.”

“Well, you know, retro is in right now,” Skye offers, but it feels weak compared to what Jemma had told her.

Still, the other woman offers a little teasing smile in return and says, “and I am all about fashion.”

\---

It doesn’t dawn on her that she should have said something else the day before, until she’s sitting in the break room listening to Trip and Ward debate which wedge is better while Shutter Island plays in the background.

The feeling of having missed an important opportunity gnaws at her through the rest of the movie.

And it only increases when once the movie has wrapped up and she’s back in the Pro Shop she notices that the twins are nowhere to be seen even though they had been right out there practicing earlier.

\---

“I’m going to kamikaze this bitch,” Skye announces, “I’m going to kamikaze this golf course in the middle of the driving range and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“You know, I did offer to drive,” Ward points out from his seat beside her in the cart, but Skye ignores him.

The only thing worse that driving the golf cart around the range that picks up the balls left behind would be sitting passenger is said golf cart. Skye’s still not entirely sure how she was able to even con Ward into riding along with her, but apparently the rest of the course is having as slow and boring of a Thursday as she is.

“Can you just try to enjoy the moment?

“I was. You were the one threatening to murder us.”

“Don’t tell me that death by golf cart isn’t exactly what you want written on your gravestone,” Skye teases.

She doesn’t turn her head to look at him, but she can clearly imagine the eye roll that she’s receiving in reply.

“Come on you know you-“ Skye starts to say, but stops short when a golf ball collides with the cheap Plexiglas paneling protecting them from stray balls on the range. She would never admit it, but she might have jumped a bit when it came in contact with the wall, but in Skye’s defense, normally people were smart enough not to try and make a target out of the ball picker.

The only people that would ever try it were those annoying kids that sometimes came by the course and they could never manage to hit the cart and certainly not with enough force to startle her.

Skye narrowed her eyes against the sun to glare up to the top of the range.

It didn’t take an idiot to figure out who had done it, not when a second one comes flying at them a moment later.

“It’s like a little kid, picking on you for playing with their favorite toy,” Skye groans, slumping forward against the cart’s steering wheel.

 “What’d you do now?”

“Why do you have to assume I did something?”

\---

“I thought you were twenty-something not ten,” Skye says, once she’s put the picker away and sent Ward off to do something productive.

“I thought you said you weren’t flirting with Jemma.”

“I wasn’t,” Skye hisses, in a lower tone than his, her eyes on the other woman who is thankfully ignoring them, focused instead on her ever important discussion with May.

Leopold snorts, “right, and I wasn’t purposely aiming at your picker.”

She glares at him, but leaves the conversation at that, unwilling to admit defeat.

\---

“I’m sorry about-“

“You don’t have to apologize,” Skye tells her, before she can even finish that sentence.

Honestly, Skye had been expecting those words since the second Jemma had come into the Pro Shop, but had been more than willing to exchange the casual small talk that had led up to it, because talking to Jemma was one of the highlights of Skye’s day.

“I know, but I am the nice one, which means this is sort of my job.”

“Being the nice one must be pretty difficult.”

“It is,” Jemma insists, far too excited that somebody seems to understand her dilemma, “my life is a series of trials and golf tournaments.”

“Make that _incredibly_ difficult,” Skye corrects.

The little quirk upward of Jemma’s lips is far to charming to be real, getting hit with golf balls is a more than fair exchange for smiles like these.

\---

“I hate children,” Skye says to nobody in particular, as she tries to right the fallen vending machine, “I really hate children.”

The vending machine that is still very broken had somehow ended up on its side, though Skye was under no illusion to how it got there. Not when she had seen the very guilty expressions on the two perpetrators faces, that Seth kid was trouble and the instigator of the whole thing, if only his father wasn’t a high paying donor to the course, then she might have actually been able to do something other than grumble to herself as she tried to push the machine back up.

Really she ought to go over and get Trip to do it, but right now he and Ward were in the middle of instructing some other kids on how to use a putter and at this moment she couldn’t be certain that taking Trip away wouldn’t result in some kid dying. 

And asking Ward for help was out of the question, because he would hold it against her for the next week and if Skye ever hoped to be able to pick a decent movie for movie day she could not have him holding anything over her.

So she would just have to do this herself – which was admittedly something that was easier said than done.

Who knew broken vending machines could be so heavy?

“Do you need help,” a charmingly British voice asks Skye, and while her instinctive reaction is to say no the fact that this is _Jemma_ offering is enough to give her pause.

“If you wouldn’t mind?”

As soon as the words are off of her lips, Jemma seems to appear magically beside her shoulder.

Skye’s not expecting it to make any difference, but the load seems a lot easier to bear with Jemma helping her push it up, and it no time at all the broken vending machine is righted and sitting in its usual position – though Skye notes with a frown that it will be needing another ‘out of order’ sign since the one on it had mysteriously disappeared.

“There all fixed,” Jemma announces, dusting her hands off on her skirt.

“Well, not exactly all fixed,” Skye says with a huff, “still practically useless other than as a decoration.”

Jemma laughs lightly at that, “honestly, if it ever gets fixed we might run out of ways to run into each other.”

The thought of not having a reason to talk to Jemma isn’t one that Skye likes the idea of, and while she knows that Jemma had just meant it as a joke she feels a bit colder just thinking about it.

When she says, “we’ll just have to find other excuses,” she just hopes she doesn’t sound too desperate.

“For you slacking off at work and me ditching practice to be incredibly irresponsible?”

“Yeah, that’s kinda our problem isn’t it,” Skye laughs.

“Just a bit,” Jemma says, scrunching up her nose.

“What if we found a reason to hang out when I wasn’t working and you weren’t ditching practice?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Skye should have seen that question coming, but it’s so forward that she freezes up, for once completely blanking on anything that she could ask Jemma to do with her. It’s the perfect opportunity to ask her out for drinks or something that could almost be considered a date – not that she’s entirely certain Jemma is even interested in her, but there has to be something there, Skye can’t be alone in the feeling, she just can’t.

However, no matter how much she tries to think, nothing remotely interesting comes to her mind and she must have the most pathetic expression on her face, because a second later Jemma seems to close up a fraction, barely even  noticeable, but just enough that Skye catches it.

“We could do a round on the course,” Jemma offers, her smile less beaming than before, “I mean, you probably know this course like the back of your hand, and I could pass it off as practice if anybody asked.”

That was quite possibly a worse idea that Skye’s complete nothingness.

The only thing that could so thoroughly ruin Skye’s chances with Jemma would be golfing against her and showing off her complete lack of skill.

Her abrupt laughter is more of a defense mechanism than anything else, “yeah, let’s not do that, I’m not even close to your level,” she says, purposely keeping it vague.

Her vagueness clearly works, because Jemma’s expression softens, “I’d go easy on you?”

“Really now?”

Jemma bites her lip before asking, “what’s your handicap?”

Skye’s initial reaction is to feel incredibly offended, before realizing that Jemma is the exact opposite type of person to ask an offensive question, and clearly she’s asking something to do with golf that Skye has never bothered to learn – that or it’s a weird British thing.

In either case she suddenly wishes she had listened more to Phil’s many lessons on golf, because had she done so her expression wouldn’t have been so terribly confused.

“I don’t-“

“Jemma! Come on! Lunch break’s over!”

Normally she would have cursed Leopold interrupting them, but his shout draws Jemma’s attention away and saves Skye from potentially sounding like an idiot.

“One second,” Jemma calls back at him, before giving Skye another one of her apologetic smiles and says, “I really have to get going, but I’ll catch up with you later?”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” she says, hoping her voice sounds more disappointed than relieved as Jemma hurries away to join her step-brother in their overly pricey golf cart.

\---

She’s eating dinner with Phil, because sometimes they pretend to do the family thing and also he makes really good pasta salads, when she finds herself asking, “What’s a handicap, and in addition what’s mine?”

He arches an eyebrow at her, “do you mean-“

“I mean in golf,” she says, a bit too quickly, because her cheeks might be heating up a bit, “it’s a golf thing right?”

Clearly she was right, because a second later he lights up. It’s the same expression he got when he won one of those signed pictures of Rogers on EBay, and it’s enough to make Skye instantly more nervous. She can practically hear him mentally gushing about how his _little girl_ finally is wanting to talk about the world’s most glorious sport.

She’s glad he manages to restrain himself, the only hint she gets of it is the slightly excited pitch of his voice when he says, “they’re extra strokes.”

“Extra strokes,” Skye repeats.

He nods once, “for example, our course is a par seventy-two, and if your handicap was ten, you could hit an eighty-two and consider yourself at par.”

Skye nods her head in return, supposing that that at least makes a little bit of sense – it’s something to level the playing field, which had been why Jemma had been interested in hers.

“So, what’s mine?”

“You don’t have one,” Phil answers.

Not exactly the answer Skye had in mind.

She had expected something like forty.

She furrows her brows together and asks, “why not?”

“Because you haven’t actually golfed enough to calculate your handicap,” he explains gently, “though if you’d like to get out on the course and try, tomorrow we could-“

“I’m good without,” Skye cuts him off, before he can get too eager.

She focuses intently on her pasta salad, so she can avoid any upset look that might follow her so quickly shooting him down. He’s always been a bit disappointed in the fact that he could never get her to stick with the sport and enjoy it, and she got enough of that in her teenage years that she certain doesn’t need to see him being let down again.

There’s silence at the table before he asks, “why did you want to know?”

“Jemma asked me,” Skye explains, “she wanted to do a round with me and when I tried turning her down, she asked that.”

When she finally looks up the expression on Phil’s face is hard to place, it’s a weird almost fond or excited look and not at all what she had been expecting.

Though she supposes she should have seen it coming when a moment later he speaks up in his _fathering_ voice and says, “so I take it you two are getting along then?”

“Can we not have this conversation?”

\---

The next morning, when she bumps into Jemma on the way out of the women’s lounge, in an attempt to avoid the conversation from the day before being brought up again, Skye finds herself asking, “what are you doing tomorrow?”

Jemma’s expression is adorably blank before she says, “nothing too important. Why?”

“Me and guys take an extended break from work on Sundays and Wednesdays to watch really terrible movies, and if you wanted you could maybe join us,” Skye says, wishing she sounded a bit more eloquent, and a lot less flustered.

Technically Skye hadn’t asked the guys if that was okay, but as the founder of their movie break days, surely she should be allowed to invite somebody else along with them. Plus it’s not like Trip would mind, and nobody listened to Ward’s opinion anyways so if he objected it wasn’t that big of a deal.

When after a moment Jemma clearly hasn’t responded, she feels a bit obliged to add, “Leopold could come too, if he promises to be on his best behavior,” with a teasing smile. 

That seems to be enough to relax the tiny bit of tension that had built in Jemma’s shoulders and a second later she sweetly replies, “that sounds fun.”

\---

“So I might have sort of invited the twins to movie day tomorrow,” Skye says, during their collective lunch break.

Trip, as predicted responds with a simple, “cool shit,” and moves back to his burger without it even seeming to faze him.

It’s Ward who makes a face and asks, “ _both_ of them are coming,” like that’s some sort of problem.

Skye just shrugs her shoulders, before turning back to her own lunch.

\---

The break room suddenly seems a bit more crowded with two extra people in it. Normally Skye has the space to sprawl out across the couch sometimes poking at Ward or Trip with her feet if they decide to join her on the couch, but today there’s going to be no sprawling about.

Normally Skye would have minded being more squished together, but not when the person next to her was Jemma.

So far things were going good for her, though it would be going better if people stopped arguing and put on a movie.

“Guests pick the movie,” Skye insists, ignoring Ward’s complains, because he usually gets to pick the movie due to some unfair and crazy system they had developed months before.

“I second that,” Trip agrees, leaning over Jemma to high-five Skye.

“Motion carried,” Skye finish, “now one of you two pick something.”

Jemma shakes her head, “I never really watch movies – I wouldn’t know where to begin!”

“Are you sure,” she asks, more than certain whatever Jemma would pick would be amazing, but the other woman just nods her head with far too much determination and tries to bury her face in her hands.

“Fine, Leopold, pick something-“

“Can you not call me that,” he groans, shooting them all a glare, but especially Jemma since she was the one that shared his first name with the group. “Just Fitz is fine, really.”

“What so half of your last name is better than your first name?”

“It’s hyphenated,” he hisses.

“Fitz,” Jemma adds pointing at him, and then she points at herself and finishes, “Simmons.”

“Oh, huh,” Skye says, though she supposed that did make a lot of sense, calling him Fitz was just significantly less fun that calling him Leopold.

“Neato,” Trip agrees.

“I told you both that before,” Ward point out from his chair, but he’s once again completely ignored.

Skye assumes the most serious voice that she can manage and says, “fine, _Fitz,_ pick something for us to watch.”

“I don’t know,” Fitz says, scrunching up his face in concentration, “is there like a genre you want or-“

“Just pick your favorite movie, other than High School Musical,” Skye teases.

“Or Tin Cup,” Trip amends, “we’ve seen that too many times.”

“My favorite movie,” he repeats, before answering, “honestly, that’d probably beInception-“

“No! Not you too,” Skye exclaims, while somewhere in the background Ward makes a noise of victory.

\---

And to be fair watching Inception isn’t all that bad, not when movie day ends with Jemma’s head resting against her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes (in no particular order): 
> 
> 1\. Tin Cup is a really terrible golf movie that is the only one they ever show on tv. Sometimes I wonder if its the only golf movie in the world.   
> 2\. The cart that picks up balls on a driving range is literally called a ball picker - I actually asked somebody at the last course I went to. It's essentially a golf cart with a fancy contraption on the back to pick up balls, and glass walls on it so you don't get hit. Very fun.   
> 3\. A handicap is the amount of extra strokes you get to reach par. Professionals have a handicap of 0. College/High School golf teams have a range from 2 to 8 usually. Mine is 10. Mine when I was fourteen was 27. It's a complicated thing and hard to explain.  
> 4\. Par is the amount of kids it should take to get the ball in the hole - I'm sure most of you have played mini golf, the same rules apply here.   
> 5\. Idk what other notes need to be made - was anything else confusing?


	4. Week 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took so long to update, I was on vacation, then working on finishing my aos big bang fic before that deadline. But here is the long awaited update, enjoy~

 “So, remember how you wanted to go a round,” Skye says first thing Monday morning, after she’s tracked down where Jemma and Fitz were practicing.

Jemma smiles at her and in a teasing tone replies, “I vaguely recall something like that.”

“Yeah, well, since I would rather not be completely humiliated,” and also because she cannot play proper golf to save her life, “I was thinking of a compromise of sorts.”

“A compromise,” Jemma repeats.

She’s got this cute little look on her face that she gets when she’s thinking about things, it’s one that over the past few weeks has grown on Skye to being one of her favorite looks, which is why she pauses for a moment drawing out the suspense before announcing her compromise.

“Put-put,” she says, popping the p as she says it, “I figure it’s only fair. I mean, I know that course by heart and you’re a professional.”

“Can I confess something,” Jemma asks. When Skye nods her head once, she continues, “I’ve never actually played mini golf before.”

“Really?”

“I just never had a reason to, if I wanted to practice my putting I’d use a putting green or- wait, why are you smiling?”

“Because I’m going to beat a WPGA champion tomorrow!”

“As if.”

\---

News of the put-put tournament spreads like wild, and by the time it’s come for their actual match all of the employees of Shield Pines are there as well as Jemma’s instructor, Fitz, and even those troublesome kids that like to knock down the broken vending machine.

She should probably feel more nervous about this, but she felt the exact opposite. Having a crowd just made it that much more exciting, and she had spent much of the morning bouncing up and down on her toes in excitement.

Also there was the fact that she had mastered this little course back during the first few months her, and now could make a hole in one for all of the holes, even the one extremely fast moving drawbridge.

“Don’t go easy on me,” Jemma tells her right before they’re about to start.

“I have no intention of going easy on you,” Skye fires right back.

“Perfect,” Jemma replies, bumping her hip into Skye’s lightly before moving past her and calling over her shoulder, “because I like a challenge.”

Her innuendo filled tone is just enough to distract Skye to the point where it takes two strokes to get her ball in the first hole. She would have been a bit more angry with herself had she not realized that that had been Jemma’s entire plan.

Well, if she wanted to play dirty then two could play that game.

\---

“Did you just hit my ball into the water? How is that even fair?”

“It’s not,” Skye admits with a smirk, “but there are no rules in put-put.”

\---

“So, out of curiosity, what do I get when I beat you,” Skye says as they’re setting up for the last hole, Skye barely in the lead over Jemma.  

“Bragging rights for the rest of eternity,” Jemma offers.

“Yeah, not good enough.”

“Did you have something else in mind?”

“I’ve got a few things,” Skye says, wiggling her eyebrows in Jemma’s direction.

The red flush that spreads across her cheeks tells that Skye’s words had hit their mark, as does absolute atrocious first stroke that Jemma manages.

“Cheater,” Jemma mutters under her breath as she moves towards her ball.

“To be fair, you started it,” Skye calls out, before going on to make her winning shot.

\---

They end up having celebratory sodas, ones gotten from the fridge in the pro shop because, as Fitz felt necessary to point out, the vending machine is still very much broken.

And Skye’s not sure what it is, but winning things seems to make her diet coke taste ten times better than usual.

That and the fact that Jemma is sitting right next to her, the tight squeeze from on the tiny break room couch causing them to be nearly pressed together.

\---

“Your girlfriend couldn’t make it to movie day,” is the first thing Trip says when they’ve settled down to watch their movie, Ward having picked yet another Leonardo DiCaprio movie, this one being one where his face still has that weird pudgy baby fat that annoys Skye a bit too much.

She’s so focused on preparing her complaint for the movie that she responds with a simple, “no,” to Trip before realizing the implications of her words.

It’s only when she sees his knowing smirk, that she catches on, and quickly says, “shut up,” before he can get another word out, “she’s not my girlfriend.”

“But you’d like her to be,” Trip says, it’s not a question but rather a statement, one that is annoyingly true.

“Shut up, Trip, nobody asked you.”

\---

She’s in the middle of drinking her morning coffee the next time she sees Jemma.

Skye tries to wave at her, but apparently she’s far too into whatever conversation that she’s having with Fitz, and oddly enough Trip, to notice her. She tries not to let that get to her too much as she starts her work for the day.

It doesn’t exactly work.

\---

The door to the Pro Shop opens around lunch time, just as Skye was about to go on her break, and she honestly intends to tell whoever just came in to leave so she can go eat, but when she looks up the words die on her tongue because Jemma is standing there looking oddly nervous.

“Hey, what’s up-“

"Out of curiosity, do you own anything other than golf skirts and polo shirts," Jemma cuts her off, the words all coming out in a rush that for a second leaves Skye confused.

"Do you," Skye asks back with a little smirk, watching with glee as Jemma’s cheeks color slightly, "but uh, yeah I do… I’ve got flannels and jeans around here somewhere, just Phil like me dressing like a golfer when I’m at work."

"You know, I dress the same way at work too, like a golfer that is," Jemma replies, and it’s a lame joke, but that doesn’t stop Skye from laughing along with her, mostly because Jemma’s little giggles  
are the cutest things in the world.

"Really? What? No way," Skye says with  
mock surprise.

Jemma covers her face as she begins to laugh properly,  
it takes her a moment before she can calm herself down, but when she does it’s  
worth it because she smiles up at Skye and says, “well, why don’t you put on  
those jeans and  as we go get drinks like normal people?”

"Did you have somewhere in mind?”

“Trip mentioned a bar on 32nd street.”

So that was what they had been talking about earlier.

She was definitely going to hit him later for interfering, also she should probably thank him, but there would be time for that.

“Sounds awesome.”

“Great, that’s great,” Jemma beams, “so tomorrow evening, 32nd street, I’ll see you there?”

“It’s a date,” Skye replies, “I mean, it’s a done deal, I’m not assuming that-“

“It’s a date,” Jemma corrects.

\---

Maybe kidnapping Ward from his work to be her fashion consultant hadn’t been the best idea, but since Trip had broken her trust and was getting the silent treatment until Skye managed to hook up with a certain golfer, she didn’t have any other options.

"So how do I look," Skye asks, twirling around once before turning to look in the mirror.

"Like a vintage lesbian golfer."

"Oh great," she replies sarcastically, "because that is exactly the look I was going for."

"Who knows maybe she has a thing for the Great Gatsby," Ward offers in an incredibly unhelpful tone.

Well, Skye had always fancied herself a bit like Jordan Baker in her youth, but that was beyond the point.

"You know, not everybody has a weird thing for Leonardo DiCaprio like you do."

\---

In the end she managed to find a pair of skinny jeans underneath her bed, an old flannel that she knows for a fact belonged to Ward (especially since he made a face and tried to claim it back upon their discovery of it), and a grey tank-top that advertised some charity event the course had put on a few years before.

All in all she feels kind of like an idiot, but it was better than _vintage lesbian golfer_.

Of course, Jemma looks perfect even when she’s not in golf skirts.

Though even she looks a bit too prim and proper for this place, her pale blue cashmere sweater helping to make her stick out in the crowd of locals.

“Hey you,” Skye says, sliding onto the bar stool next to her.

“Oh hey, you made it,” Jemma smiles, “I wasn’t sure if you were going to-“

“You thought I’d back out?”

“Well, you are a bit late.”

Skye pulls her phone out of her pocket to check the time, “five minutes hardly counts as being late. If anything it’s fashionably late.”

“Is that it now,” Jemma smiles, “well, in that case, the fashionable one should buy the first round of drinks.”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

\---

“Hey, Jemma.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Oh, yes, wonderful idea.”

\---

The next morning she’s nursing a slight hangover, but she feels so overjoyed about the events of the night before that even the pounding in the back of her head cannot seem to bring her down. Except there’s one thing, a silly nagging feeling that she confesses to Ward as they’re walking along and she’s trying to gain some sort of life support from the cup of coffee in her hands.

“You should just ask her,” Ward says in his no nonsense tone; and she thinks the tone has something to do with her inclination to go along with what he says.

“Yeah, you’re right I probably should, but what if she doesn’t-“

“At least you’ll know.”

She feels like he’s not telling her something, but he doesn’t say anything more on the subject so she lets it drop.

Until their path suddenly crosses with the path the twins are taking on their way to the driving range and Skye feels the words stuck in her throat.

Then Jemma smiles at her and waves and Skye thinks that okay maybe she could ask this.

“Hey, Jemma, I-“

Before she can even ask her question, Jemma crosses the distance between them as kisses her. It’s just as wonderful as last night, except now it’s happening in public where everybody can see and Jemma doesn’t seem to care.

She supposed that answered that question.

After a moment Jemma pulls back, and there’s just enough worry in her features that Skye nearly feels bad.

But this time she leans forward and answers the unspoken question between them by being the one to start the kiss.

They only end up finally breaking apart, cheeks flush, laughter bubbling between them when Fitz calls out, “women, honestly, can’t you two keep it in your pants?”

\---

When Sunday rolls around she ends up skipping the weekly movie break to make out with Jemma in one of the back rooms, but really steamy make out sessions in cramped places is way more fun than watching whatever terrible movie Ward had picked out for this week.

 

 


	5. Week 5

“You can’t keep ignoring me,” Trip tells her on Monday when he’s just about over the silent treatment.

She arches an eyebrow at him and continues her work of righting the signs that had been blown over by the wind.

Trip follows along helping her clearly waiting for Skye to respond, but when she doesn’t he continues, “if anything you should be thanking me for helping to push you in the right direction.”

She doesn’t answer him again, and this time his groan is even louder than usual.

“The appropriate response would have been,” and now Trip picks up the same mocking girl-y tone that he uses every time he pretends to imitate her, “oh thank you Antoine, for being so kind and helping me get laid!”

That’s almost enough to crack her resolve, because she kind of wants to repeat those words just as sarcastically, but she doesn’t manage to because as fate would have it somebody happens to be walking past them at the same time and overhear his words.

“What did you do to my daughter,” Phil says, appearing nearly out of thin air, and using the stern dad voice that she normally denies the existence of until moments like this.

At least this time it’s not being aimed at her so she barely contains her laughter and turns to give Trip a mischievous wink.

“Oh yeah Phil,” she says plastering on an obviously fake smile, and giving Trip’s arm an affectionate squeeze, “Antoine and I are totally a thing now.”

“No, no we’re not,” Trip cuts in, “not that there’s anything wrong with you – her,” he looks up at Phil with this sort of nervous glance, “you have a very lovely daughter, I’m just not the one that’s dating her,” he’s still panicking and it’s kind of funny when he adds on a polite, “sir,” at the end.

Phil just gives them both an exasperated look, well mostly Skye, before he says, “this is one of those ‘I don’t want to know’ moments isn’t it?”

“Mhmm.”

\---

“So rumor has it your dad thought you and Trip were dating,” Jemma says when they’re eating lunch, but there’s a wide teasing smile on her face that Skye finds far too endearing.

“He does that a lot actually,” Skye shrugs.

“Well, we should probably, uh, correct that notion.”

“Miss Simmons, are you requesting that we make out in the middle of the golf course?”

“Not exactly the middle of the course- but, yes?”

\---

They end up kissing up against the broken vending machine, and somewhere in the back of her mind Skye thinks that finally this machine is being put to good use, though it’s a distant thought compared to the roar of emotions and pleasure that is filling her as they kiss.

The only thing she can really think of is that if she had said something she might have been able to have this a little bit sooner.

They only break apart when Fitz who happens to be wandering by yells, “and this is why the machine is still broken!”

And Skye starts laughing so hard that she couldn’t concentrate on kissing even if she tried.

\---

It’s kind of nice when she’s working in the Pro Shop and Jemma on a break in her training comes in with a smile on her face and says, “Do you think you could take a tiny break?”

For that smile, Skye could take a million breaks.

They end up in the museum again, which has kind of become their hiding place because nobody ever actually goes over here, and amongst a bunch of classics golf memorabilia she kisses Jemma until neither of them can think straight.  

At least this time there’s nobody to interrupt them and ruin the moment before they’re ready to stop.

\---

They show up for the movies on Wednesday because while Skye wouldn’t admit it, she had felt a _little_ bad about breaking her tradition with the boys, plus Jemma made some suggestion about how they could cuddle up together and who was Skye to deny a chance at cuddling.

So, at the usual time they bundle into the break room, where surprisingly Fitz has already made himself a member for the group, settling on one of the oversized chairs in the room.

Ward arches an eyebrow at their return from having missed Sunday, but it’s Trip who says something, “finally took a break from all the hot sex to spend time with your friends,” he teases.

And while Jemma flushes prettily beside her, Skye has no qualms about looking him straight in the eye and saying, “we actually just finished,” which isn’t technically true.

But it sets Fitz off who groans, “for god’s sakes, that’s my sister you’re talking about, the last thing on earth that I want to hear about is her sex life.”

“Oh Fitz!”

“It’s very kinky,” Skye teases him, “we do it at least four times-“

“Can we just watch the bloody movie,” he cuts her off, hands going up over his ears and glaring at her with the best glare he can manage.

“Thank you,” Ward grumbles.

“So what’s on the menu for today,” Skye asks Ward who is fiddling around with the DVD player.

“The Great Gatsby,” he replies smoothly, and she can just see the hint of a smirk on his lips.

“Really,” Skye asks at the same time Jemma asks, “why?”

Trip steps into answer this one, “I thought we covered this, but he’s got this weird obsession for DiCaprio-“

“Actually, this one is for Skye,” Ward cuts in.

“No,” she says, because she’s put the two and two together the second he said the title of the film.

Somebody else though foolishly has to ask, “why?”

Which means Ward gets to proudly proclaim, “ _vintage lesbian golfers_.”

\---

“I’m wearing a white shirt,” Skye insists, but it’s a meager protest because Jemma has already darted out in front of her to join in the silly sprinkler games.

It’s nearly a hundred degrees outside and all of her idiotic friends, and one wonderful girlfriend, are standing in the middle of the golf course where the sprinkler system is on playing some impromptu tag game that their Fitz or Trip started.

She wants to join them, she really does.

“Skye, come on!”

“If it gets wet you’ll be able to see everything,” she insists stubbornly, wondering how much effort it would be to run back into the Pro Shop and grab something else to wear.

“Just take it off then,” Trip teases, at the same time as Jemma says, “nothing I haven’t seen before.”

She finds infectious laughter taking over her, before she pulls the shirt off over her head.

“It’s only fair if you do it too,” Skye says, poking at Jemma when she finally goes the water mess.

Less than five minutes later everybody is wet and shirtless and making fools of themselves, but it’s great.

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that _this_ is the best summer that she’s ever had.

\---

“So, it’s Friday,” Skye says first thing in the morning, “and I was wondering if you wanted to go out and do something again or-“

“You live at the course right?”

She laughs a bit awkwardly, “you make it sound like I’m a hobo that sleeps in a cardboard box on the green.”

Jemma grimaces, “oh god, sorry, I kind of did, didn’t I?”

“A little,” she teases.

“What I meant was, your apartment is around here somewhere, right?”

“Yeah,” Skye replies hesitantly, not exactly seeing what Jemma is getting at until she says.

“Since, I’m done for the day, I was wondering if you might want to – ahh, you know,” and that’ all Skye needs to put the two and two together.

She most certainly wants to be doing _that._

Right now actually, which is why she doesn’t reply to Jemma but instead calls out to the shop, “five minute warning before we close,” because waiting any longer than that for what Jemma is implying would be outrageous.

\---

“You’re incredible, I want you to know that completely incredible, mind-blowingly so.”

“Skye, I don’t think that’s even a word.”

“It’s your fault; you’re so good at _that_ , I can’t even words.”

“You’re not making any sense,” she laughs.

“Mhmm, no, you should kiss me again though, maybe I’ll make more sense then.”

So, she does.

\---

“We can steal you an outfit from the Pro Shop,” Skye insists, as Jemma continues flushing and trying to drink her coffee. She’s beautiful and incredible and her hair is all mussed up, “or you could borrow one of mine.”

“We’re not the same size,” Jemma points out.

“Ouch, you calling me fat now?”

“What? No! You’re just _tall_.”

“Mhmm sure.”

“Oh Skye, I’m serious,” she says with a little pout.

“I know, I know,” Skye teases in return, pressing a kiss to Jemma’s cheek when she passes her by, “but you really can’t go down there wearing the same thing you wore yesterday.”

“Fitz and May are already going to know since I didn’t go back to the hotel,” Jemma points out.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

\---

It’s around lunch time the next time she sees Jemma again, dressed in an outfit that she had _insisted_ upon buying from the Pro Shop, and looking pretty sure in the obnoxious orange, which is saying something because nobody looks cute in Puma Orange.

“May is wanted us to take the day off from training tomorrow, so I won’t be around the course,” Jemma says, a bit reluctantly, once they’ve covered all the basics of small talk.

“It’s not because-“

“No, no, of course not,” Jemma insists, shaking her head, “she just doesn’t want us to over work ourselves, but I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, I guess.”

Really it’s just one day without seeing Jemma around, but everything has been happening so fast with them that that one day seems like a lifetime away when Jemma gives her one quick kiss before slipping out of the shop.

\---

There’s a moment in which she suddenly realizes that summer is almost over, they’re sitting on the couches in the break room, watching yet another movie, and it hits her halfway through, a terribly sudden realization that makes her stomach turn.

“Leonardo DiCaprio’s not in this movie,” she announces.

“Nope,” Trip replies, popping the ‘p.’

“Why not?”

“We watched his whole filmography,” Ward explains, simple and to the point.

 “Which meant it was _finally_ my turn to pick a movie,” Trip says proudly, gesturing to the screen where an animatronic T-Rex is attacking small children in an obviously fake van, “and we have been long overdue to Dinosaurs.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who am I kidding, I'm never going to actually remember to put notes at the end of these chapters.


	6. Week 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I asked over on tumblr what people wanted to see updated next, and since this was the number one choice, here we are!

She tries to pretend that she’s not obscenely relieved to see Jemma Monday morning, but when she leans over the shop counter to press a kiss to her lips, before handing her a bucket of golf balls, there tension that had been gathering in her shoulders overnight seems to have magically relieved itself.

“You sure you have to hit these thing now, maybe we can take a break together or-“

“I’m sorry,” Jemma says, honestly looking apologetic, “we’re only here for a few more weeks, and May is really insisting that we need to stay focused, but I’ll see if I can manage to squeeze a quick break in.”

“Yeah, no it’s chill, I get it,” Skye insists, trying not to sound too bitter about it.

\---

Her break ends up being ten minutes in which they eat a rushed lunch together, before Fitz stops by, looking almost apologetic as he comes to steal Jemma away and back to practice. At least she gets one more kiss in, but really it’s nothing compared to what she wants to do to the other woman.

“Later,” Jemma insists, with one last kiss.

Later doesn’t end up coming that day.

\---

“We should really get the vending machine fixed before the party,” Phil says Tuesday morning, as they’re working on opening up the course.

And Skye tries not to feel too foolish when she asks, “what party,” because with everything that had been going on this summer, she had just sort of forgotten about the end of the year bash that Shield Pines always threw.

Once he starts talking about it again, the arrangements that they will need to make for catering, the decorations, the raffle prizes, she almost feels bad for forgetting.

Any other summer Skye would have been the one in charge of running this thing, she would have everything organized and be the one presenting the facts not the other way around.

“It’s not like you to forget these things,” he points out.

“I’ve just been really busy, lost track of time, you know how that can be,” she says hoping that her shrug is more casual than she feels.

“Just don’t work yourself too hard,” he says, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before heading out of the shop.

\---

“Have I ever mentioned that you two are my best friends and favorite coworkers in the world?”

“No.”

“Trip,” she whines, flopping down on the park bench overdramatically, “please help me.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“My endless gratitude,” Skye offers.

“Not good enough.”

“What do you want?”

“A million dollars?”

“How about a free soda,” she says instead.

He pauses for a good minute, like he’s honestly thinking about it, like for a second there he would really consider not helping her with organizing the bash, before he finally shrugs his shoulders and says, “okay that works.”

“Is anybody going to ask what I want,” Ward asks, but nobody has really been listening to him anyways, and both Skye and Trip have already moved onto making plans for the raffle prizes.

\---

“Sorry the boss man has me running like crazy,” Skye says when she quite literally runs into Jemma down on the course.

“I can tell,” she says smiling, “you look a little frazzled.”

“Good frazzled or bad frazzled?”

“Mhmm, let’s go with both?”

“Ouch, that bad,” Skye grimaces, reaching up to run a hand through her hair in attempt to salvage the mess that she no doubt looks like.

Jemma just laughs at her, her nose scrunching up adorably as she does so, “well, don’t let me keep you from your super serious work.”

\---

Their usual mid-weak movie break is spent doing anything but taking a break, with Jurassic Park Two (“Yes, they made a sequel, and yes it is awful!” “Hey!”) distantly playing in the background, mostly muted as the three employees of the golf course lay sprawled out across the break room floor making phone calls to catering companies and designing raffle tickets that properly emulate the vintage theme of the course that their boss still insists is a thing.

And even though she’s too busy talking on the phone trying to arrange some sponsors for the event, the fact that her shoulder is pressed up against Jemma’s helps to make the whole situation a bit more bearable.

As does the soft circles that are being drawn into her skin in an altogether soothing fashion.

Without that, and the ongoing commentary from the only other person not working on how terrible this movie is and how Jurassic Park did not need a sequel, she wasn’t entirely sure how that she would have been able to make it through the day without becoming a ball of stress.

\---

Thursday she becomes that aforementioned ball of stress, and even the slushie that Ward goes and get for her from the 7-11 doesn’t help to make things any easier.

Though it does make things pleasantly cherry flavored and turn her lips bright red.

So there’s that.

\---

Friday comes sooner that Skye would have liked, and she doesn’t see Jemma all of Thursday which leaves her in a bit of a bad mood in the morning.

A mood that is noticed by her foster father who keeps shooting her anxious looks while they prepare for the end of summer bash, until finally he pulls her into a hug and says, “you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I’m here for you if you need it.”

It takes a good deal of willpower for her not to start crying as she tries to remember the last time she got a hug like this one, one that she so clearly needed and was just there to support her nothing else. But somehow she manages to hold it in, just squeezes back as tightly as she can and says, “I’m fine, dad.”

If he notices that she doesn’t call him _Phil_ for once, he doesn’t mention it, and she’s thankful for that.

\---

And even though she’s spend the last week stressing over every last detail, she stills seems a bit surprised when the whole thing goes off without a hitch.

It seems silly that she keep sitting around waiting for bad news to happen, even when Phil stops by where she’s lurking about to congratulate her on pulling off another amazing party and insist that she goes and takes a break.  

Even the kids that usually wreaked havoc on the course by stuffing things in the ball returns or knocking over broken vending machines, had swung by to wish her a good day, before stuffing their face with the free bags of candy and proceeding to get what she hoped would end up being a very painful sugar high.

“You’re amazing,” Jemma tells her, when the other woman finally manages to track down where Skye had been hiding.

“Hardly,” she insists, “I had a lot of help, and it would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t been so airheaded and had remembered  to-“

But Jemma just kisses her, cutting her protests off, when she pulls back it’s with mirth in her eyes as she says, “amazing.”

“Ugh, fine, if you insist,” is her weak protest in reply.

“I do insist,” Jemma grins, before reaching down to grab her hand and lacing their fingers together, “now come on, the boys tell me that mini-golf is free today and I believe we need to have a rematch at some point.”

“It’s free for kids,” Skye points out, “and club members.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m dating you then, isn’t it?”

“Guess you got pretty lucky there.”

“Oh, I most certainly did!”

\---

“Did you just kick the ball,” Jemma asks, narrowing her eyes at Skye’s faux-innocent face.

“Uh, nope,” she lies, “are you sure you’re not seeing things?”

“I saw you kick it!”

“Honestly, Jemma, this is golf not soccer-“

“You mean _football_!”

“I mean soccer,” Skye says sticking out her tongue, “and okay, I _might_ have kicked it, but since you can’t prove it, it totally counts as a swing.”

\---

“How much longer is it going to be?”

“Shut up _Leopold_ , enjoy the moment.”

“I’m trying,” the golfer responds, stubbornly, before wrapping his arms around his chest as if he was actually cold, “it’s just _so_ boring.”

“Fitz, be nice,” Jemma chides, poking at her step-brother, before leaning back against Skye.

“Yeah, be nice,” Trip quips poking at him as well, and Skye might have been crazy, but for a second she could have sworn that Fitz had actually smiled, but she couldn’t be certain.

“You did actually remember to schedule somebody to do the show, right,” Ward asks, and Skye doesn’t bother suppressing her eye roll, he’s just lucky that he’s on the other side of the bench and thus too far away for her to through something at him without there being a chance of her missing and it going horrible wrong.

“I did,” she just insists, sticking her tongue out at the whole group of guys over there.

“I thought you said sunset-“

“Any second now,” Skye insists, her eyes raised up to the night sky, soon the fireworks should be going off.

And as if right on cue, the second she stops speaking, the first one goes off, illuminating the golf course with its red light.

“Told you so,” she whispers under her breath, not that anybody really hears, because all eyes are up on the sky watching the firework show.

Skye may not have been ready for summer to end, but this moment, with everybody she cared about crowded around watching the firework show; this would have been a good place for her story to end.

\---

By the time they manage to wrap everything up for the night it’s nearly midnight, and Skye can’t help herself when she offers, “you know, it’s getting late you can always crash at my place?”

“I don’t know, remember last time, and I still don’t have anything to wear,” Jemma says, her cheeks a bit flushed as she continues, “plus I have to figure out where Fitz has gotten off to-“

“I think Trip’s got him under control,” Skye winks.

Jemma’s laughter is perfectly charming, before she gives in with a wide smile and says, “okay, but you have to remind me to sneak out early enough that I can get dressed properly.”

“No promises,” she insists, before tugging Jemma up the stairs with her to her apartment.

\---

“Look at you, all freshened up,” Skye says, letting out a low whistle and Jemma twirls around, looking completely adorable in her skirt, “you look incredible for somebody that snuck out of my apartment at five in the morning.”

“Aw thanks,” Jemma says, with just a hint of sarcasm.

“Though personally I thought you looked much better lying in my bed with nothing but my bed sheets wrapped around you.”

“Skye!”

“Can you blame me?”

\---

“Wait, there are three Jurassic Park movies?”

“Yes, and they’re all equally awful.”

“Woah! The first one was great! And this one isn’t _that_ bad.”

“Honestly, I’m just thankful it’s not more DiCaprio.”


	7. week 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so now that I'm back in the swing of things, I really got on a roll with this one! I wasn't sure if updating back to back felt too soon, but I am just so eager to share with you all the rest of this story that I didn't care! So enjoy?

“Summer’s almost over,” Jemma says, as if it’s some causal point of conversation, like she’s remarking on the weather, not the end to one of the best seasons of Skye’s entire life.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she agrees, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“The sun is setting sooner,” she points out, where sure enough over the driving range the sun begins to set, casting a red and purple hue over the field, “it’s interesting how the days get shorter in the winter. Science is sort of incredible.”

“I guess it’s a good thing the range is lit.”

As they sit there, nursing sodas, watching the sun crash down from their line of sight, she tries not to think about how her life has been a series of fucked up metaphors.

Instead, she finds a way to distract herself asking, “so science?”

“Oh yes,” Jemma says, nodding her hair, so that her ponytail swishes with her, “I wanted to be a scientist, before I got big into golf; it was either that or being a doctor. You know, I actually won my elementary school science fair, I created this model of the solar system that really worked.”

“Doctor Jemma Simmons,” Skye says, squinting at her, “nope, I don’t think I could see it.”

“Why not?”

“Because _doctors_ aren’t nearly as cute as you.”

\---

“I’ve got a twenty minute break,” Jemma announces, her fingers tapping a gentle rhythm against the hood of Skye’s golf cart, “in which nobody is going to come looking for me and I could do just about anything I wanted so, if you aren’t busy-“

“I can become unbusy,” Skye says cutting her off, before patting the seat right next to her, “if you wanted to go find somewhere that nobody could disturb us.”

“That would be ideal.”

\---

“God, you’re just, so beautiful,” Jemma says, pressing a kiss into her shoulder as her fingers work at the zipper on her skirt.

“Look at that, I’ve made you religious,” Skye teases back, before bringing her own hands down to tug her skirt down a bit too roughly.

“You’ll rip it,” she chides, but it’s not a real tease, and as her fingers skim the lace panties that are the only thing really standing in their way, Skye cannot imagine that Jemma actually minds as much as her tone attempts to portray.

“I have others.”

\---

Unable to pick any other movie to watch, they end up putting on _Tin Cup_ of all things.

Even though everybody has seen the movie far too many times and could quote it without any effort.

She and Jemma sit together in the back, sharing a chair that is really meant for one person and poking fun at how into the movie the guys are.

“They’re such nerds,” Skye insists.

“Golf nerds,” Jemma agrees.

\---

They sneak out before the movie is over, heading down to the museum with the pretense of cleaning things up or making sure the place isn’t being vandalized by teenagers.

Really it’s just an excuse for them to find a secluded place to kiss.

“I’ve never felt like this,” Skye says, and she’s talking about the warm feeling that grows in her chest every moment that Jemma is around.

But when Jemma nods her head, and says, “it’s a bit grade school, isn’t it? Sneaking off because we can’t keep our hands to ourselves,” she assumes that the other woman just doesn’t understand what she means.

So, rather than pushing the point, Skye reaches a hand out to press up against Jemma’s breast through the fabric of her shirt and says, “it’s your fault.”

“That so?”

She nods, “I can’t help myself, and you are just so irresistible.”

“I would say that we should sneak up to your apartment,” Jemma says, voice catching slightly as Skye begins to make circles with her fingers, “but the boys would notice and I think we’d both rather avoid their teasing.”

“Fuck them,” Skye says, even though it’s the same as her reluctantly agreeing.

“Mhmm, nope, I don’t like to share.”

\---

They’re sitting in the museum for the second day in a row, hiding out from the eyes of everybody else around them, but Jemma is hesitating more than usual, her touches lingering a moment to long, but her kisses brief.

It’s a complicated mood that has left Skye confused ever since it started.

She knows something was coming, that there was a talk they’ve need to have for the past few days that Skye has miraculously been able to silence, but she hadn’t realized that this moment would be when it finally came out.

Not until Jemma began to worry her hands together, till she pulled back from Skye with her brows knit together like she was deep in concentration.

Asking, “what’s wrong,” felt quite possibly like the worst thing Skye had ever had to ask.

“Nothing, really, just I – well,” Jemma rambles, looking even worse by the moment.

“What is it?”

“I have to go,” Jemma says, and Skye knows that she’s not just talking about right now, she’s talking about the whole thing they have had going for the past few weeks, “the first tournament of the new season is coming up, so we’re heading to LA and-“

“And this is the end,” Skye finishes for her.

She must hit the nail right on the head because the look Jemma shoots her is one that is so sad and regretful that it really hurts to meet her eyes.

“I mean, it’s not like,” Jemma starts and stops, before shaking her head, “you couldn’t have expected me to- eventually, I was going to have to go back and compete.”

“I know, I knew,” she insists, but that doesn’t make this any easier.

“Well, then-“

“I just didn’t realize that that would mean you breaking up with me,” she points out.

Never had Skye let herself think far enough ahead to wonder what the end of summer would mean for her and Jemma, but she supposes had she this would have been the only logical answer.

After all, Skye was well aware of the fact that she wasn’t the type of girl that somebody would bother putting in the effort of a long-distance relationship with.

(She was lucky that she had even gotten this much, seeing as none of her previous relationships had even managed to last anywhere close to this long.)

Jemma had still yet to say anything, but the way she kept worrying her lip between her teeth made Skye more than certain that whatever answer she was about to blurt out was not one that Skye wanted to hear.

“Look, whatever, Jemma, I get it,” Skye says, squaring her shoulders she manages to mutter out, “good luck next season,” before storming out of the little museum.

\---

“Hey kiddo,” comes the voice from the other side of her apartment door, “the boys told me you weren’t feeling well and I wanted to check up on you.”

She knew in a second she could open the door and hug her dad and have him be the incredibly supportive foster parent that he has always so desired to be, even when she’s been too stubborn to admit that she needs one.

But doing so means talking about how she’s feeling, and at the moment she’s not sure whether she wants to cry or hit something, or both.

So, instead she just cracks the door open and says, “I’m still alive.”

There’s worry clearly on his features, eyebrows knitting together, when he says, “do you need me to get you medicine or tissues or-“

“It’s just cramps,” she lies, because it’s easier than telling the truth and she the second she says it she can already see him start to relax, after the grimace.

One little lie isn’t bad if it helps make things easier for everyone else.

“Ahh,” he says, her lie making everything make sense for him.

“That time of month and all,” she continues, “I mean, unless you’ve got a box of chocolate hidden around, the best thing for me to do is really just lay down and bemoan the fact that I was born a woman for a couple days.”

“So uh, chocolate?”

“That’s about the only cure other than time.”

\---

“I heard somebody needed some chocolate, so I appeared,” Trip says, when he knocks on the door sounding far too chipper for the first thing in the morning.

“That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard,” she tells him, but she opens up the door nevertheless to let Trip in.

“That’s racist,” he teases in reply, before pushing a coffee cup into her hand, that with one sip proves to be a hot chocolate, though his mischievous grin makes it clear that he planned the whole thing.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Skye says, her lips barely moving off the rim of her cup.

“Me neither,” he agrees, waving his own cup in her direction, “I just came to make sure the cramps hadn’t killed you.”

“You know I wasn’t really-“

“This may shock you, but I do have sisters, and you are far to chipper to be in pain,” he inclines his head once, “at least, that kind of pain.”

“I still don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then don’t.”

\---

She sleeps through most of Saturday, and watches sad movies, since every stereotypical romcom has shown her that _that_ is the cure to a broken heart.

It doesn’t work, but the supply of chocolates that Phil keeps having sent up to her apartment makes things a little bit better.

Also if she ever gets put in a life or death situation in which she needs to quote Legally Blonde in order to survive, she could.

\---

Their usual Sunday movie break still happens, but not in the break room, because just the thought of going back there reminds her of the last time she was there, laughing with Jemma about the fact that they were actually watching that stupid golf movie.

Instead, the three of them are sitting in her apartment, putting off their duties in a truly spectacular fashion, as they watch giant robots fight space aliens.

Nobody says anything when she starts crying in the middle of the movie, they just press up against her until her shaking stops and she no longer feels quite so alone.

“Stupid action movie making me feel things,” Skye says, excusing the tears that she quickly tries to wipe away.

“It’s the dog that does it,” Ward tells her.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to put dogs in action movies anymore,” Trip agrees.

“You guys are awful,” she says, but she doesn’t mean any of it.


	8. epilogue

“It’s been nearly a week.”

“Over a week,” she corrects with a sigh, “and I just barely passed qualifiers.”

Okay, just barely was an exaggeration, but this was by far the worst game that Jemma had ever golfed, not including the time get got her wisdom teeth out two days before the WPGA.

She grimaces at the memory, but Fitz takes the grimace as something else entirely, “look I’m not here to offer you relationship advice.”

“Then don’t," she replies, none too gently.

He, of course, ignores her.

After all, that’s what brothers are for.

“You could have said something,” he insists, again, she’s heard this discussion ever since she came to Fitz in tears demanding that they left the course yearly and telling him the whole story while curled up in the bed of some shitty motel, “instead of just letting her-“

“She didn’t want to listen,” Jemma insists, blinking her eyes quickly so that she can stop any tears from having the chance of forming again.

Jemma could still remember the day clearly, as if she could forget what was by far one of the worst moments of her life.

She hadn’t been coming in there to break up with Skye, but Skye had jumped to all the wrong conclusions and Jemma had found herself froze in her seat unable to say anything to dispel the other woman’s doubt in her until it was far too late.

The four tickets that she had been going to give Skye to this weekend’s game had felt like a heavy weight in her pocket when all was said and done, and it was only Fitz who had been able to convince her not to rip them up afterwards.

She still had them in her purse, keeping them around like a bitter reminder.

“You know the course is only a few hours drive from here,” Fitz says, as though it’s a casual point of conversation, not something that makes Jemma’s heart start and stop in her chest.

She knows the distance, the very mileage, has counted it all out in her head and foolishly insisted that it was too far away for her to go back and try and change things.

“We’re competing tomorrow – or well, you are, and I’m on Sunday, we can’t just drive three hours and-“

“Yes, we can,” Fitz insists, “as long as we’re back in time for me to tee off tomorrow morning, we’re good.”

“Oh Fitz!”

“Oh Simmons,” he says mocking her only slightly, before he winks and says, “Now, are you going to get in my car or am I going to have to force you?”

“You might have to force me.”

“Well, you’re far too heavy for me to pick up-“

“Did you just call me fat?”

“So you’ll just have to manage to get in there yourself, because _I_ am leaving,” he smirks, “with or without you, somebody has to confess to that girl your feelings and if it’s going to be me-“

“Don’t you dare, Leopold!”

\---

Three hours didn’t seem like such a long time when they had been getting into the car, but now halfway through the drive it does, and she’s insisted no less than three times to Fitz that they could really just turn around and go back the way they had come.

Not that he had listened to her at all.

So instead needing a way to channel her anxiety she had taken to playing with the dials of the radio, or at least she tries to do so while ignoring the way Fitz grumbles in the driver’s seat every time she switches the channel.

“For God sakes, woman,” he mutters under his breath.

“You know,” she says, because asking one last time really can’t hurt, “we could always just-“

“No.”

“Fitz! You’re the worst step-brother in the entire world!”

“I try.”

\---

“We could still turn around,” she says, once they’ve parked the car.

She’s more than expecting him to insist that it’s far too late for that, as he has been the entire journey, but rather than saying so he simply says, “I can drive back to LA right now if you really want to.”

“But we came all this way,” she says, and briefly wonders how they ended up with the tables flipped, “I mean, it seems silly to leave now that we’re actually here, because even if this ends up terribly, won’t it be better than having said nothing at all?”

He just shrugs his shoulders, proving to be the most unhelpful person in the world.

But really Jemma has already made her decision.

She made her decision the second she allowed herself to step into this car.

The door opening shouldn’t feel as much of a relief as it does.

“Do you think she’d be in the shop or,” Jemma looks up towards the sun trying to judge the time.

But Fitz is one step ahead of her, staring into the display of his phone he says, “let’s go see if they’ve managed to fix that vending machine yet,” in a way that isn’t casual at all.

Her heart flutters in her chest, pounding against her ribcage as though it wants to burst out as they walk over towards where the vending machine is, and it only intensifies when she hears a loud and far too familiar voice talking with somebody that the back of her mind vaguely registers as Trip.

And then they turn the corner and this is it.

The look on Skye’s face when she sees her is hard to explain. It looks hopeful and angry and shocked all at the same time, and for a second they just stare at each other neither of them saying anything.

In her head, Jemma feels as if she’s teleported back to the moment where everything went wrong.

The spell breaks a moment later, when Skye turns almost embarrassed and hisses, “I hate you,” but she’s not talking to Jemma, instead she’s talking to the guys standing off to the side with clear conspiratorial smiles.

Still, her own devastation must show, because a second later when Skye turns back to her, she’s apologize, “not you, I meant them, I mean, also a bit you, but not like that,” she groans, about to start saying something else.

And this, Jemma knows, is the moment she has to speak up.

She has to say something that makes sense and fixes things.

So, she tries.

“I wasn’t breaking up with you,” she blurts out, because apparently her mind thing the best place to start is the center of this whole mess.

“What?”

“When we were in the museum, and you got all mad at me, I wasn’t breaking up with you,” Jemma elaborates, she tucks her nervous shaking fingers into her pockets and continues, “I mean, unless you had wanted to, but I don’t think you did – I mean, I think you assumed I did so that’s why, I had to come back and explain things.”

“What?”

“Okay, you just said that twice, not that that’s a bad thing but, am I not making any sense? Sorry, I think the boys sort of planned this all out, and I have no clue what I’m saying – I just, Skye.”

“Jemma?”

She digs into the pocket of her purse and pulls out the tickets, holding them out to Skye to take, “I wanted to give you these, in case you wanted to come see me play. That was what I was going to say.”

Skye takes the tickets, and she watches carefully as she flips them over and examines them.

“This is for tomorrow.”

“And Sunday,” Jemma nods, “Fitz plays tomorrow, and I play Sunday, this will get you into both if you wanted to come. I mean, I wanted you to come- I still do, really, I do.”

Skye’s still impossible to read, but she lets out an almost sigh and says, “so this, is what you wanted to say to me that day.”

“Yes, and something else.”

“Something else?”

“I’m – oh god, this is a lot harder to say now that I thought it would be,” she runs a hand through her hair, making a mess of it and tries to take a deep breath, “Skye, I’m in love with you, and I didn’t say so before, but I meant to. I should have said it anyways, I kept thinking after you walked away, that had I said it, things might have gone different but- but I do love you, even if you don’t feel the same I thought I should at least tell you before you decided to hate me forever.”

“You love me?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

And really there isn’t anything else she can do now.

Just wait and see what Skye has to say.

The moment between Jemma’s words and her answer seem like an eternity, and eternity that is only broken up by the rapid beating of her head.

“That’s good,” Skye finally says.

“It is?”

“Yeah, because I think I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big shout out to everybody that read along this story, who left comments and kudos and chatted with me on tumblr about all of the plotting mess that I had to get through to give you this. As you probably know this fic was mostly a self-indulgent mess that I felt the need to share with the world, so thank you all putting up with my nonsense, and my weird mid-story break between chapters that lasted nearly a month (I'm super sorry about that one). You all rock!


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